Obituary: Robert McGill Krueger

March 3, 1939 – February 15, 2024

Bob Krueger escaped this mortal realm peacefully on February 15th in Grand Junction, Colorado at Western Slope Memory Care from complications due to Alzheimers.

Aspen has lost an eccentric, yet modest, long-time local character, whose life and work contributed to making Aspen a remarkable and special place.

Born in Boston, Mass. to Melvin Johnson and Elizabeth McGill , Bob grew up in Minnesota with two half sisters and eventually took his step father’s name, Krueger.

After graduating from The University of Minnesota with a BA in Sociology and History, and having served in the U.S. Coast Guard Reserves, in the 1960s Bob drove his Triumph sports car one winter to Aspen, while serving as support staff for the University of Minnesota Ski Race Team.

He fell in love with Aspen and began to document the imminent changes brewing politically and culturally with his camera and sharp eye.

He built a house, mostly solo, in Brush Creek Village in the 1970s, and was proudly influential in getting Pitkin County to formally name his street ” Fat City Way” (it is now known as Upper Ranch Rd.) as a mildly sarcastic political comment on Aspen’s ongoing changes.

In his sixty years in the valley Bob was foremost and always a photographer. He was an instructor at Center of the Eye photography workshop and program in the Hotel Jerome’s basement and he helped build and set up the dark rooms there.

He was, over a varied career and life, a parole agent, folk singer, carpenter, auto and motorcycle mechanic, radio announcer, writer and teacher. He remained passionate about his photography, guitar and banjo reconstruction and classic European motorcycles.

He was strikingly detail oriented, whether addressing a Nikon specification , Gibson guitars’ internal bracing or some obscure mechanical feature of the various BMW and Moto Guzzi motorcycles he owned, as well as on a broad range of other subjects.

Ask him for the time of day, for instance,  and you just might get a lecture on watch making!

He authored two books — “Gypsy on Eighteen Wheels”  and “The Wild Mustangs” —  and is featured in an array of other publications through his extensive work as a photojournalist.

Bob was also a good friend to many, the first and sometimes only one to show up and help someone pack, repair a broken vehicle or move an entire household and he was kind and gentle in demeanor .

A lifelong bachelor, he is survived by four half sisters:  Susan Skinner of Napa , Calif., Wendy Kardia of Afton, Minn., Barbara Riley of Radnor, Pa., and Alice Handwerk of Amherst, N.H., and all of their families.

The Bob Krueger Collection of photos has been donated to the Aspen Historical Society Archives prompting curator Lisa Hancock to remark recently, “It is truly a historical treasure trove !”

A celebration of Bob’s life will be held next summer, and donations in his name to The Society would be welcomed. Those interested can check out the link to view his photographic legacy at: http://www.archiveaspen.org (search for the Bob Krueger Collection). This is a work in progress and the photography may not be all up until this summer.

A special thanks to the staff at Western Slope Memory Care , the lovely support of Hope West Hospice and my partner of the last year in this endeavor of care giving for Bob .